This volume contains twelve essays that describe the writing of history in medieval Western Europe. Each chapter examines a type of subject matter about which medieval historians wrote, and discusses both the texts and the modern approaches to these texts. The authors include both historians and literary scholars.

There are four chapters on early medieval historiography (universal history, national/ethnic history, institutional history, and biography/hagiography) and eight on later medieval historiography (the same four, plus dynastic, urban, contemporary, and legendary history).

This comprehensive one-volume survey, in English, of medieval historiography can serve both as an introduction for students and the interested layperson, and as a handbook for the scholar.